


Come take my hand, kiss my lips, taste the promise I hold

by Melusine11



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Curse Breaking, Curses, F/M, Family Drama, Mention of other canon characters - Freeform, Monster Rey, Mythology - Freeform, Prince Ben Solo, mild body horror, they both need hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-10 02:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20520137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusine11/pseuds/Melusine11
Summary: Cursed and alone, Rey has reluctantly come to terms with her exile. Until Ben Solo stumbles into her home and she begins to hope.





	Come take my hand, kiss my lips, taste the promise I hold

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This fic wouldn't exist without the help of Meritmut, who cheered me on, didn't let me give up, and sent me some ace inspo pictures when I was staring down the deep, dark, looming abyss of a deadline I almost didn't make. Also, thank you to all of my good bitches for tolerating my questioning of lines I wrote with grace, and encouragement that I was still making sense, before distracting me with puns.
> 
> A million thanks to the mods of the RFFA for running this, and editing _so many_ words from all of us.
> 
> I ended up cobbling together a few versions of the myth I chose - but I'll detail that at the end!
> 
>   


**Once upon a time** _there was a girl; lovely, strong and happy. She lived with her mother and sisters on an island their mother claimed was magical. It was beautiful there, magic or no. Flowers were always in bloom and the water was always perfect; crystal clear, and never too cold. It was paradise, only she didn’t know it yet. When she and her sisters were old enough, their mother finally told them why they lived in this magical land, how their father had betrayed their mother’s trust, how he had promised not to come and see her when she had given birth. That had been the only stipulation their mother had made. Rey thought he got off easy, the temporary banishment a small price to pay for falling in love with a creature like their mother._

_She and her sisters had stayed up late into the night discussing things of the past. She didn’t have a name for the hot feeling in her gut at the time. Revenge—anger her mother had called it. The three sisters left the island and sought their father out. It was easy. He was mortal and so pleased to see them. Rey felt nothing for this man she had never met before and had no qualms about locking him and his wealth within a mountain._

_Rey had never felt a fury quite like her mother’s when she found out what they had done to their father._

Rey snorts at the memory, expelling air violently into the water in front of her, propelling her body forward and up. Small bubbles dance across her skin as she swims until she breaks the surface. Dappled sunlight decorates the surface of the lake that she calls home. 

She’s been here for what feels like an age, every chance at freedom stolen from her by her curse. It wasn’t so bad, at least not at first, because in her naivety she believed it wouldn’t take long for someone to help her.

They were all so quick to fall in love with her.

Until they got to see her, truly.

The yelling is what rouses her, interrupting her afternoon rest in the sunlight. With a sigh, she slithers into the lake from her rock. The closer she gets to the commotion, the faster the transition takes place. It’s been ages, but she’s never gotten used to it, the condensing of her monstrous form into what she used to be. She hates it—that she’ll go to meet whoever they are in a body that no longer belongs to her.

She lingers, eyes barely above the water as she watches, treading water. It’s been a while since anyone stumbled into her home, but he is easily the largest human she’s ever laid eyes on. Another man is with him, far closer to her own height, and slender of build. The man she had heard yelling has the build of a fierce warrior, but she sees no weapons with him.

The other man spots her first, rising from the depths of the lake, water falling in rivulets down her body. As much as she hates the compulsion to reveal herself, she takes some satisfaction in viewing reactions to her.

“Sir,” he says, sounding almost reverent, and Rey smiles gently. Mortals are always so particular about bared flesh.

The raging man snarls “What?” before catching sight of his companions' face and spinning around to face her. They both start at the sight of each other, Rey because she realizes he has been crying, and him because of the expanse of skin exposed to his gaze without shame.

“You, girl,” he says, voice thick but calmer as he steps towards her. “How long have you been there?”

“You mean how long I’ve been watching you?” Rey asks, tilting her head. That’s not typically the first thing that gets asked of her, and she’s careful to mask her surprise from him.

“Of course that’s what I mean,” he growls, anger flaring back up.

“Not long,” she informs him, stepping forward, toes wriggling in the mud of the lakebed. “You were crying,” she says, watches the companion suck in a sharp breath and look like he wants to intervene.

“Who are you?”

“Who are _you_?” she counters, “It’s quite rude to come into someone’s home and demand their name, is it not?”

This gives him pause and the smaller man breathes a quiet “The lady of the lake.”

“Hardly,” Rey says, amused. “My name is Rey, and you are?”

“Ben. Ben Solo.” He shuffles awkwardly as she continues making her way towards shore. She wonders over his blunder but says nothing.

“You come from the lake?” he asks when she’s standing on the shoreline. Rey feels her lips turn up in a smile as she turns back to survey the place she had risen from and then turns back to find Ben blushing and fumbling at his neck for the strings of his cloak. “Here.” He thrusts the garment at her and she reaches for it. Her limbs feel heavy, as they always do after so long in her serpentine form.

“Are you a witch?” the unnamed companion blurts out and she laughs.

“Mitaka, please,” Ben hisses, blush rising.

Mitaka. An unusual name. “No, Mitaka,” she says, rolling the name over her tongue, it feels strange. “I’m not.” He had seen her first, so by rights of the curse he should be the one to be swayed into coming back, but the way his name tastes, she knows that it’s Ben that will be the one. Hopefully.

“I’ve heard of creatures like you,” he continues, and now Rey notes Ben is flushing with embarrassment over Mitaka’s words. “Women who live in lakes and lure unsuspecting me to their deaths.”

“Whoever told you that?” Rey asks, bewildered, adjusting the cloak further around her body. It’s heavy, growing heavier by the moment as the bottom of it sits in her lake, soaking up water. “I’ve never—well, I’m sure someone out there might do that, but certainly not me.”

“So you aren’t going to seduce us and drag us beneath the surface to kill and eat us?”

Ben blanches and Rey finds herself at a loss for words before finally gasping out, “Would you like me to?”

“No! I’ve just never heard of well...you.”

“I’m sure you haven’t.”

“Mitaka,” Ben sighs, “Shut up. Go find where my horse wandered off to.”

“As you wish, sir.” Mitaka straightens and only looks slightly put upon over being dismissed.

“You’ve done something,” Ben says, once Mitaka disappears into the trees. His boots sink slightly into the muddy water as he steps forward to better confront her. Rey has to tilt her head back to continue looking at his face.

“Not me,” she whispers, fidgeting with the edges of the cloak, it separates enough to reveal a stripe of skin that has Ben blushing again before she pulls it closed once more. “I need your help,” she gasps, the words pulled from her unwilling like every time before. 

“Anything.” She hates it, this part, she already knows exactly what he will say. They all say the same thing. Until they don’t.

“There’s a castle,” she tells him through gritted teeth, wishing it didn’t have to be this way. “Down over the hill.”

“I know it,” his brow furrows in confusion, “It’s rundown. Abandoned.”

“A curse,” she supplies, “I can break it. If you do, the castle, the land...me. It’s all yours.”

“All mine? Would I be a king?” He looks amused.

“I don’t—” he’s broken from the normal dialogue she knows. “I do not know. Nor do I know the intricacies of the human hierarchy. Does having a castle make one king?”

“Perhaps not,” he concedes, still looking like she has said something funny. “What if I find I do not want a castle, lands or...you?” 

“Then I suppose this is goodbye, Ben Solo,” she says, waiting for her curse to take her again with his refusal, but nothing happens, she’s still a woman.

“You won’t try to fight my decision?”

“Sir, you will find that I—” She looks around, at a loss for words. “I cannot. I can only—” slowly she parts the cloak again and he’s quick to reach out and pull it back together.

“Enough of that, I think I get the picture. You seduce men who come upon you.”

“If only it were so simple. I do not _truly_ seduce them. I am, while my appearance here might give the impression that I am some wanton trollop, I am not. I can only...will you come back? Will you consider the offer?”

He says nothing, eyes raking over her form where the cloak has fallen open once again, now that no one is holding it closed. They’re brilliant in the sunlight, warm, brown, golden and kind, but he still looks sad, it gathers in the corners of his eyes, the downturn of his mouth. She can see it. His hand is suddenly on her face, gently brushing the contours of her cheek, tangling in the wet strands of her hair.

None who came before him had ever dared to touch her. The last touch this form—indeed any form she takes—has had was her mother all those years ago, when she was stuck here, cursed. Her body is desperate to lean into the warmth of his touch, to find a way to keep it.

“I have the key,” she tries enticing him. “You must come three times more, and take it from my mouth.” 

He frowns and she knows how crazy she sounds, but she has no choice, it’s the path of the curse. Involuntarily, a noise of protest leaves her as his hand shifts and his index finger and thumb pinch at her jaw, making it drop open. “I see no key,” he observes, and she pulls out of his grip.

“It’s at the bottom of the lake.”

She can see that he doesn’t believe her.

Mitaka returns with the horses and Ben steps away from her.

“Please,” she whispers, small waves lapping at the shore, at the back of the cloak. She doesn’t need to, the pull will be too strong. It’s always a compulsion, the manifestation of humans' greedy nature to come back. 

“Tomorrow,” Ben says, swinging onto his horse, glaring at Mitaka when the man tries to protest and then they leave. Guiding the horses back through the foliage and underbrush towards the road that she knows lies somewhere through the trees. She’s never seen it though.

For a long time after they leave, she stands there. When the sun starts to set she shrugs out of the cloak and tosses it to shore. Wading back into the depths to wait until he returns. The fact that she is still mostly human is the only indication she has that he is coming back again, that his decision wasn’t a negative one yet.

* * *

She is floating in the lake, sun on her skin; sometime in the night while she slept, a shift had happened, like it always does. Still human, but one step closer to her snake form. Her fingers and toes sport a webbing that wasn’t there earlier in the day, her skin is an odd, mottled shade, closer to that of her cursed form. Her limbs are thicker, stronger, longer than they were the day before.

“My lady!” His voice cuts through the silence, the note of joy found within those few syllables burns through her.

She flails in the water, rolling onto her stomach and then swimming towards shore. 

“You came back,” she breathes, rising from the lake again, this time she’s taller than he is. 

“I—yes.” His head tilts back this time and his perusal is blatant and less shy today than it was yesterday.

“You are changed.” His voice is a deep rumble now, swaying slightly towards her, not looking the slightest bit repulsed by her looking like this. She wonders if he has some Fey blood somewhere in his line. Diluted, but enough to not be so caught up in her spell. Fully aware, not mindlessly seduced, actually seeing the changes.

“Where is your guardian today?” Rey asks instead of agreeing with his obvious statement and swallowing down the flutter of hope that was threatening to consume her whole.

Ben laughs, and the sound curls through her, warm and bright. “He’s not my guardian, I’m more than capable of fending for myself. He’s more of a nuisance, but he means well.”

She smiles, not quite knowing what to say next. This isn’t the normal route of things.

“Is it impolite to ask how long you’ve been under whatever this spell is?” He strolls along the shore until he comes to a downed tree and takes a seat on it.

She doesn’t dare to hope he will stay for long. “I do not know, you’re the first to ask.”

“How many men have you met?”

“Many,” she tells him, finding a spot that’s deep enough to keep her submerged if she sits. “I have been here a very long time. The year was 1012 when my mother—“ she chokes on her tongue and growls in frustration.

“Your _mother_ did this to you?”

“Of course,” Rey laughs, “while I admit I deserved a punishment...perhaps, if you come back twice more I will be able to tell you.”

He nods, crossing his ankles as he observes her. “I would like that.”

“May I enquire—yesterday you were upset,” she tries.

“I was,” he concedes with a nod, but gives her nothing more.

Rey watches him. He looks relaxed and at ease beneath the shade provided by the boughs of the trees above. He is handsome. It has been some time since she had seen a man, and longer since she’s found a man she finds as attractive as him. Decades at least. She recalls his companion from the day before, decides that they are both handsome, but Ben is striking. His face contradicts itself— strong, but parts of it look so soft, like the gentle warmth in his eyes, and his mouth, with plush lips she can’t help but take notice of. It has been so long since she has kissed a man, she hopes one day soon she will get to experience Ben’s kiss.

She kicks back to float, chastising herself for her thoughts. It doesn’t do to get attached, it will only end in disappointment.

“What happens if I’m already married?” he asks and Rey kicks slightly harder than needed in surprise.

“You aren’t,” she says hesitantly, “at least you shouldn’t be, that’s not the way this works.”

“By your own admission, you’ve been stuck here for a long time. I doubt you even know how it works.”

She grumbles, not wanting to admit he might be right. “There’s a compulsion. I imagine it would make you want to get rid of your current wife should you follow through with returning, with getting the key on the last day.”

“I’m due to be betrothed.”

She frowns at the sky, surely that couldn’t be the reason for him being so upset yesterday. While he certainly doesn’t sound thrilled by the prospect, merely resigned to the fact that it’s happening; no, something else was happening yesterday.

“Can you leave the lake?” 

“No.” The rasping sound of wet rocks rubbing against each other comes and she watches him move carefully towards her, out into the lake. “Not yet,” she amends.

“I’ll help you.”

He sounds so earnest, she’s heard it before, believed it before.

“Will you let me help you?” He’s shin deep in her water now. She stops floating. Her teeth worry at her bottom lip, they’re still blunt, human, tomorrow they will pierce her skin if she tries this then.

Rey stares at him, feels the hope well up within her. Ben is different, the way he watches her, focuses on her face, and not her skin. The others were always so hungry for it. No one had ever offered their cloak before. Maybe, he really can help her.

“You can try,” she settles on saying.

“I don’t have to try. I will help you, Rey,” his voice is as soothing as the sound of the water lapping at the shore, she wants to wrap it around her, live in it. 

“We’ll see,” her voice warbles, but he doesn’t seem to notice, too caught up in watching something behind her. Twisting, she watches an egret stalk through the waters, head diving beneath to catch a meal. 

“You are a strange man,” she says, drawing his attention. She means it. And that’s why she’s so scared of the hopeful feeling blooming. No one else had ever seen her really, a glazed expression, taken up by the imagined beauty they saw instead of her. Always an ideal image of a woman, not noticing the change and shift in her until she had a chance to take their arm off with her mouth. Then they ran, fanciful vision fractured. 

Ben isn’t like any of them.

“You aren’t the first to say so.” His hands clench into fists at his side. She has offended him. “Nor will you be the last, I imagine, when you’re free of this place you will give me decent competition. You’re a strange woman, Rey.”

She laughs.

“Not a woman, not anymore,” she says quietly, soft as a breeze. “A monster.”

She watches his chest hitch with a breath, and oh, he’s going to break her heart. Carefully, he moves further into the lake, until he can reach her. “I’ve met monsters, Rey,” he tells her, voice low, intense and she shivers when his hand takes hers. “I know monsters,” he sounds far away, but his thumb traces over the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. “You are not a monster.” He squeezes her hand hard.

“I’ve done terrible things,” she confesses, thinking of the rage she felt all those years ago. Locking up her father, dooming him to die if not for her mother’s intervention. 

“There isn’t a being alive who doesn’t feel that way, and if they say otherwise, they’re lying to themselves. They aren’t always terrible things either, but guilt does strange things. It will eat you alive if you let it.”

Long after he’s gone, when the sun dips down below the treeline, she stays curled up on her rock, knees tucked beneath her chin thinking about what he said. The tips of her cold fingers settle on the apples of her cheeks, remembering the way he had brushed away tears she didn’t realize she was crying at the time.

He’s going to break her heart.

* * *

The next day dawns dreary and grey, Rey can smell the impending storm approaching. She stretches, feeling her limbs creak and pop. Her feet feel cold, hissing when she notices her lower half is completely serpentine once more. 

She runs her hands over her scaled flesh. Smooth and cool. She slips into the water.

She dives beneath the surface, swimming down to the small hollowed out rock that holds the key. She picks it up, it’s solid and heavy, knows if she carried it to the surface it would shine, polished gold, glinting in the sun. Magic.

He stares at her tail, just barely slicing through the water behind her when he arrives, alone again.

“Rey,” he says by way of a greeting and Rey frowns She can’t figure him out. 

He strips out of his boots and wades into the water yet again.

“What are you doing?” she asks sharply, backing away from him until she runs into the edge of her small island rock.

“The day we met,” he says without preamble, “I just received word that my father had died. Where I’m from—it’s a several weeks journey back.”

“I—why are you here?” It’s a foolish question, she knows the compulsion will pull him back until he is released from it tomorrow. “You should be with your family.”

“I can’t go back. I’m—I was banished. I’m lucky to have received a message at all.” He swims around her and then hoists himself up onto her rock. She folds her arms on the surface of it by his thigh, resting her chin on her hands and looks up at him. Behind her, her tail moves gently, disrupting the surface of the lake as she waits for him to speak.

“I’m the younger son, our parents, well, depending on my mother, my brother might be a king now.”

“You grew up in a castle?” she asks and he nods.

“Our parents hired the best tutors for us, and while my brother learned about things a future king needed to know, I was taught to fight. I was going to keep my brother safe. But I failed.” His face twists in grief, and Rey _wants_. Carefully, she reaches out and takes his hand the way he took hers the day before. She doesn’t care if he runs tomorrow, if he sees her as the monster she is and never returns. All she wants is to help him.

“A man came, while our parents were away. He met with my brother in private, and then he never left. My brother became someone else. Cruel and twisted and next to him through it all was that man. No one else trusted him, and Kylo, my brother, defended him at every turn, at every strange thing that began to happen. My parents were distraught. They tried to remove him from court, but he kept coming back. Our Uncle was called upon, he grew up separated from my mother, became a man of the cloth.” Rey doesn’t know what that means, but nods, her changed eyes wide with feigned understanding. “ It—things got really ugly for a while, and then I heard him arguing with my Uncle. He was some sort of dark wizard.” Rey can feel Ben’s hand shaking.

“It was a disaster. I killed him in the end. And others.”

“You saved your brother.”

“I did. At the time, he didn’t see it that way. He said I ruined everything. And maybe I did. Before that wizard drew his last breath he cursed me. I can’t go home. Ever.” Rey didn’t know what to say, but she understood. She would never see that island she grew up on again. Would never see her sisters or her mother again. “Sometimes, I still have dreams of him, of that night, they aren’t always clear, but the thing that always remains constant is the way Snoke’s eye’s glint in the firelight as I realize what I have done. So I know what monsters look like Rey, and you aren’t it.”

It starts to rain.

“I should go,” he says, but he doesn’t move.

“Sorry,” Rey whispers when he jumps, her tail gently circling his bare ankle.

“On the nights that I wake from dreams, Mitaka is always there. Spinning fanciful tales. There are rumors about me, about what I did, that _I_ was the one who went mad.” His voice is raw and broken. He squeezes her hand hard and whispers, “maybe I am.”

Long after he leaves, she coils herself up on her rock and muses over what he had told her. She should have told him he wasn’t mad, perhaps she will still have the chance. Her mind drifts. How long has it been since she last saw her sisters? She used to hear whispers of them, not cursed in the same way she was. At least she hopes, no one had been coherent enough to answer her questions, only telling her what she wanted to hear. She hopes that they’re happy. Whatever befell them, she hopes that they led a better existence than she has.

* * *

It’s still raining when she wakes the next day. She is back in the body she’s known the longest. Lifting her head she stares down at her reflection. A monster stares back. Dark scales, strange eyes. Sharp teeth overlap within her mouth.

She exhales heavily and settles her head back on the rock, enjoying the way the rain falls on her body. When enough time has passed, she slithers into the lake and fetches the key, it sits on her tongue uncomfortably.

The clouds part just past midday, but the rain keeps up for a little while longer. Rey worries while swimming slow circles within the water. None of the others before Ben had ever failed to come on the fourth day. Ben was different though, not taken in by her mother’s fey magic weavings. He resisted most of the compulsions, and saw her. Perhaps, he can resist the compulsion to return.

She cannot cry in this body, but oh, she feels the grief as she watches the sun set. He isn’t coming. The acknowledgment of this fact twists within her, settles in her gut like a stone. 

_A fool_. She imagines her mother on the island laughing at this development. 

Would that she could swallow the key, be done with this whole farce of a curse. Only this time she’s been the one taken in and not seeing the truth until it’s too late. She can’t lose an arm, as she has none in this body, but perhaps her heart really can break over a man she barely knows.

The sun is setting, no longer able to be seen, but still, it casts long shadows over her lake, until they’re gone and darkness of night engulfs her. Her eyes drift closed.

Warm hands are on her face, running over her snout, and it’s so unexpected she recoils away, eyes snapping open. She’s ready to lunge, to attack, a low rumbling growl escapes her.

“Rey,” Ben yelps and she stills. _Ben_. “Rey, I’m too late.” She can see him just fine in the dark, he’s soaked and he looks distraught. “I’ll come back tomorrow!” he declares, standing up with purpose. Rey knows if he leaves now he won’t ever come back, she won’t be more than another dream he can barely remember the next time he wakes.

She presses her nose to his stomach and coils her body around his legs. _No, no, don’t go_. She pleads, knows he cannot hear her thoughts. He reaches out for her again, hands gentle even as he teeters, almost falling over at her quick movements.

It’s still there, and slowly she opens her mouth. He sucks in a sharp breath. She isn’t sure if its the sight of the key nestled carefully on her tongue or the rows of teeth that surround it that has him reacting like that. He moves fast, doesn’t even hesitate. His fingers tickle as they brush her tongue and then he's holding the key between them. 

Nothing happens.

“No.” He sounds sad. Rey uncoils herself from around him, slithers towards the edge so she can slip beneath the rock and not have to look at him and his sad expression any longer than she has to.

Her body convulses, and she thinks maybe Ben shouts her name but she can’t be sure. It sweeps over her quickly, different from every other time. Stomach roiling she heaves, nothing comes and her lurching stomach gives way to great gasping, choking sobs. Then Ben is there, hands touching naked skin, pulling her to him, onto his lap. He’s talking to her, soothing her, even as her fingers curl tightly into the linen of his shirt. 

The water is cold, offset only by the heat of his body and she shivers.

“Are you all right?” his voice is quiet, gently and Rey leans back to peer up at him.

“I’m cold,” she whispers and then laughs, before feeling more tears escape. “I don’t remember the last time I was truly cold,” she confesses and then Ben is standing, scooping her up into his arms and suddenly he’s on the shore. Putting her down in the soft grass. Rey flexes her toes, relishing in the feel of it.

“Here,” Ben says, swinging his cloak around her shoulders, it’s the same one from the first day, she wonders when he took it back, knows she never noticed.

“Thank you,” she says teeth chattering, fingers tugging the cloak tighter around her.

“I told you, I would help you.”

“You did,” she agrees, smiling hesitantly. “Now what?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Ben drawls and Rey nods, she knows this, but these are the first moments of the rest of her life, _finally_. “First, we sleep.”

“Oh,” Rey mutters, and Ben chuckles. 

He holds the key up between them, “I believe, there’s a castle waiting for us.” 

She pushes the key back towards him, she’s been guarding it for far too long, it finally belongs to another and she’s happy to be rid of it. Following behind him, she watches, tracks his movements as he digs in the saddlebags. The camp is hasty and makeshift, but he builds a fire and gives her a shirt that hangs on her like a dress, and she is warm. Happy.

* * *

She wakes before the sun, naked limbs snaked around his body, blankets kicked off sometime during the night, but she doesn’t mind, she isn’t cold. He rolls towards her and she shifts her body with the movement. A heavy arm is thrown across her waist.

“Why are you awake?” his sleep roughened voice asks and she tilts her head back to kiss the underside of his chin. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and moves so he can kiss her properly. She presses against him as his warm, calloused hand drifts up her back, tangles in her long hair.

“I had a dream about the lake,” she confesses against his mouth, and his arms squeeze her tightly.

“Are you all right?” He asks, pulling back from her.

Her smile is radiant, and she feels him relax. She wriggles until her arms are free enough to reach up and cup his face. “Of course. I woke up to find you here with me.” She pulls him to her for another kiss.

Beyond their closed door, the sounds of the castle stirring can be heard, but coiled together in their bed, they’re only aware of one another.

They were going to live happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Melusine was _not_ the original creature I picked, but when I got into the other one, I realized it was more than I'd be able to handle properly before the deadline. Then it was a matter of figuring out what to pick instead, even as my username stared back at me.
> 
> She's a figure from European Folklore, France most typically, and indeed the House of Luxembourg, the Counts of Anjou (including their descendants the House of Plantagenet) and the French House of Lusignan _all_ claim to descend from Melusine. (Which is wild, and also features heavily as a plot point in The White Queen by Philippa Gregory).
> 
> So because of all of this, there are myths about her in France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Albania. In some she's half-woman, half-fish/serpent, some she has wings and two tails (think Starbucks), others she's fully serpent.  
In most versions of the myth there are conditions to Melusine's curse, and in most her husband betrays her trust, or they meet her and never return, but this is Reylo, so we weren't gonna do that.
> 
> [This was a heavily used source for me, it's got the myth translations all in one spot.](https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/melusina.html) But the first time I ever met Melusine was in a kids novel where she was a girl who turned into a snake by Lynne Reid Banks.


End file.
